Mr Smith was the Head of Policy and Government
relations at Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals from
2005 to 2008. The American company generously allowed Mr Smith to fight
the 2006 Blaenau Gwent by-election as a Labour candidate – which he
lost.

We bet they were. Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the World. Since the year 2000 Pfizer has been on a mission to make Big Pharma even bigger, by taking over other pharmaceutical companies, even trying (and failing) to take over the huge AstaZeneca. You can't do that without political friends.

Not knowing if you’re opposed to something is what many in the Parliamentary Labour Party have been best at for a long time. Owen himself is known to be very committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons but wants to replace Trident; he’s also a supporter of women only shortlists, unless people are against them. If Labour want to return to their position as incredible abstainers instead of being the opposition, they may have found their man, although Owen bravely picked a side and voted with the Tories to introduce the welfare cap.

In the true tradition of Stalinism, all CLP meetings have been suspended for the duration of the election campaign, because the plotters are
complaining that they will be 'intimidated' by grassroots members.

Since last night's NEC meeting, if you joined the Labour Party after 11th January 2016, like over 100,000 members, you won't get a vote.

Unless you pay £25! Of course if you are a wealthy member then £25 is nothing, but then again you quite likely won't vote Corbyn will you? Also the window for registering is only open for two days, starting next Monday.

You need to be fast, the £25 will only work until 20th July!

Helpfully The Independent has outlined how to get round this Corbyn Supporters Tax:

Update: This has all been changed by the party establishment, the methods crossed out below may no longer apply. Here is the latest from Unite:

Your Party Your Voice

Your Party Your Voice

URGENT UPDATE:The Labour party
procedures committee has ruled that an affiliated union member must both be a
member of their affiliated union for 6 months and be registered as an
affiliated supporter by 8 August 2016. This is a change from last year's
election.

Do not assume that as a new Unite member you will be entitled to a vote.Please read the guidance below fully.

The only way to guarantee a vote is to join the Labour party as a registered member, which costs £25.

Registered membership opens on 18 July and closes on 20 July. The website will only be available from the 18 July.

Unite will obviously be following developments very closely and will post updates on the Unite website as soon as possible.

Unite
members can apply to be Labour party affiliated supporters and
therefore be eligible for a vote in Labour’s leadership elections, but
there are criteria for applications to be accepted.

Unite members must:

Have been a member of the union since 12 January 2016

Pay
the political levy – this will be the case unless the member has opted
out. It is a portion of member subscriptions to fund political
campaigning by the union.

Agree
to the statement that they support the aims and values of the Labour
party and are not a supporter of any other political party and agree for
their contact details to be shared with the Labour party.

Be on the electoral register at the address given to the union and the Labour party.

Provide a date of birth and email address.

Apply to be an affiliated supporter before 8 August 2016. To do this, fill in the form below.

The
Labour party will be conducting the election. Queries about the ballot
or members wishing to check if their applications have been accepted by
the Labour Party should contact the Labour Party www.labour.org.uk.

Currently, new party members who joined after 12 January
are ineligible to vote in the upcoming leadership election unless they
pay the increased fee

Supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn greet him after
the announcement that he is allowed by the NEC to stand in the party's
leadership election without needing to secure nominations REUTERSMore than 100,000 new Labour Party members must pay a £25 fee to take part in the upcoming leadership election vote.The decision by Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) has caused outrage among Jeremy Corbyn's supporters who have interpreted it to be another attack on his leadership.There are, however, a number of ways to avoid the fee, which
currently is an obstacle to around 20 per cent of the membership who
joined the party after 12 January.

Read more

Firstly, people can join the Unite union as a community member, paying 50p a week until becoming an affiliate member by 8 August.This would allow members or anyone interested, including students and the unemployed, to vote in the upcoming election.Secondly, if you are black, Asian or belong to an ethnic minority,
you would be eligible to vote in the election after paying £5 for a
two-year membership of BAME Labour.

If you are LGBT, you could gain a say in the leadership election if you join LGBT Labour for £8 a year.Alternatively, you could join Scientists for Labour for a concession rate of £5 to vote.

Labour membership numbers are thought to have reached around half a
million, more than the 405,000 it reached during the high point of Tony
Blair's premiership.There is no change to affiliated supporter status, and people in
affiliated trade unions will be able to sign up for a vote at no cost up
until Monday August 8 – a fortnight before ballots are sent out.

Simon Hardy gives the facts about Corbyn's victories so far that you won't read in the rest of the press

The reactionary fall out from the Brexit vote continues to tear
through society. The Labour membership and the Labour left are now under
the most sustained attack seen since the Bevan-Gaitskell clashes of the
1950s. The Labour Party is in a state of civil war – the mass rally of
10,000 Corbyn supporters outside Parliament felt like a battle cry of
the rank and file against a cynical, mendacious coup by the Bitterites.

Their claim is that Corbyn is unelectable. Between back-handed
compliments that he is, in the words of the sacked Hilary Benn, 'a good
man, a principled man', the right wing narrative is that Corbyn is an
electoral liability for the party. This narrative is spun out in the
media – a example of how sinister elites try to turn a claim into a
reality. What was the old adage about lies repeated often enough? They
try to prove their lie through a coordinated set of resignations from
the shadow cabinet. This plan was revealed in the Telegraph two weeks before the referendum – it is not a spontaneous display of anger, it is a premeditated coup against the Labour left.

But the tremendous display of support for Corbyn across many
parts of the Labour Party and from the trade unions reveals the class
divide at work here.

Here are some facts about Labour under Jeremy Corbyn that you aren't seeing in the Mirror or the Guardian.

1. The biggest mandate

Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership with the biggest mandate from
party members that any leaders has ever won - 59% - more than all the
other candidates put together.

2. Huge membership increase

Labour's membership has increased dramatically under his leadership - over 380,000 members.

3. Byelection victories

Labour has won 4 by elections since he became leader, Oldham
West, Sheffield Brightside, Ogmore & Tooting. Oldham West, Tooting
and Sheffield Brightside saw Labour win on an increased majority.

4. Mayoral elections won

Labour won London Mayor with Corbyn as leader. Sadiq Khan won
with the largest personal vote a single politician has ever received in
Britain, 1.3 million. It was also the first election of a Muslim
candidate to a western capital city. Labour also won Mayoral elections
in Salford, Liverpool, Bristol.

5. Good local election performance

In the local elections in 2016 Labour's performance was as good
as 2001, when Labour won a second landslide in the general elections.
Labour has repeatedly been ahead of the Tories in the polls since the
start of 2016.

Whilst the Brexit vote was very disappointing, Labour delivered
63% of its 2015 voters to vote Remain in the EU referendum. Compared to
the SNP's vote of 64% of their voters and 70% of Liberal Democrat
voters, Labour didn't perform qualitatively worse. David Cameron and the
Tories couldn't even deliver a majority of their voters - only 42%
voted to Remain.

Even if the right wing's arguments were true that Corbyn doesn't
'look' like a leader or doesn't 'get his message across in the media',
it just means that Labour is doing exceptionally anyway. Imagine how
well Labour would do if its MPs were loyal to their members and leader
and Labour could present a united campaign, unhindered by in-fighting?

If the coup plotters stand a moderate left candidate in a
leadership battle, Labour members should not be tricked into supporting
them as some kind of unity candidate. They would be a front for the
disruptive coup plotters.

Corbyn has been with the left since the start, dedicating his
life to the movements of resistance and hope that have battled it out
against the forces of reaction for the last 30 years. If Corbyn is
defeated then the triangulation of the party back towards
soft-austerity, social liberalism and migrant-bashing is guaranteed.
That way lies oblivion.

Simon Hardy is a Labour Party member and a member of Lambeth Momentum.

Hundreds of thousands of people, like you, have joined the Labour party to help
us transform our politics and our society.

To win the next General Election, we need to organise our Party and our
communities around a movement with a clear and bold plan to put an end to
savage Tory cuts, reach out to all those disillusioned with politics, and offer
a vision of a better, fairer future.

The plotters who have paralysed our party during a period of national crisis
are afraid to even have a debate with our own members, let alone the country.
That's why they've resorted on trampling on party democracy and trying to force
Jeremy off any leadership ballot.

This is the old politics versus the new, and we have 24 hours to ensure our
party gets a choice about its future.

Here's what you can do now.

Join Labour, and
stay

Join the Labour party, join Momentum and
encourage your friends, workmates and family to join. The plotters don't want a
mass party that can reach beyond Westminster. We do, and we're here to stay.
There has never been a time where your active support in the Labour Party is
more needed.

Sign our petiition

Sign our petition to show your support for Jeremy Corbyn
being on the ballot for any leadership election, and to ask our National
Executive Committee to respect Labour democracy - and then share the link to
the petition on social media.